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“One hour, Priscilla or I am calling them, and you can figure out which college back home is within driving distance because we both know you won’t be going to a dorm after this.” He ended that call and shook his head. “She is such a brat!”
“Your sister?” I asked because I couldn’t really remember everything we talked about up to this point. I was almost done with that slice.
“Cousin, but yeah, we grew up together, so yes, she is like a little sister. She’s a freshman. A freshman! It’s four in the morning and she is at a frat house. A frat house!” He rubbed his forehead. I took another bite to prevent saying anything. “Now I need something for this headache. I didn’t have headaches before this year? Before she showed up here. I get knocked around plenty on that field but didn’t start feeling head pain until she moved in.”
“Better than ass pain.” I realized how that sounded a little too late and explained, “My big brother calls me PITA. Pain in the ass. He’s eight years older than me. I think I surprised my parents.”
He looked at me and said, “My dad is dead, and my mother is…absent. My uncle and aunt, Prissy’s parents, took me in.” Then he said as if he didn’t mean to tell me that, “If that ends up in the school—”
I shook my head, “No. I…no way. I’m not sure if you noticed, but you were the only one at that hospital to see me. No one at the school came to see that I was okay.”
He didn’t seem convinced of that. “Maybe they didn’t stay, but someone was there. My coach knew you were okay by the time I was out of the showers.”
“Why did you come to see me?” I asked and he moved to the paper bag and pulled out one of the prescription bottles.
“You read the news yet?” he asked. I had watched a little, but not read anything. It was enough to know the light they were shining on him was that of villain. I winced. “So, I was coming to let you know that I didn’t land on you because you were a woman. I landed on you because you were another journalist more interested in what you wanted than what was best for yourself or anyone else around you.”
That seemed really specific, and I understood immediately, so I asked, “Is your mom a journalist?”
“No.” He handed me the pill. I took it as he put the bottle back in the paper bag. He went to the cabinet and took two over the counter pain relievers and said, “Her husband is.”
“I promise I won’t share anything with anyone.” I could do that for the guy taking care of me. Sure, this scenario had all the trappings of a best seller, but that would also put me in front of a camera, and I belonged very firmly behind one. Which reminded me, “Um…did you see my camera bag at the hospital?”
He shook his head. “Nope. Just that plastic one and that little one with pills.”
“My camera is missing.” I picked up my phone. It was dead. “May I borrow a charger?”
He extended his hand, and I gave him my phone. He put it on the charger and looked at the front door, the time, the door. I asked, “So…the frat house…I mean…it’s college. She’s with a friend, right?”
“Candy is her girlfriend, but that girl is bad news. Too wild, too much. I don’t even think she is a full lesbian. So where does that leave Pricilla?” He crossed his arms and looked at that door again. “If she breaks her heart…” He stopped, then looked at me and said, “I don’t know. How are you feeling?”
Like Brady Parker was a lot more than just a star quarterback. Like I was crushing on him. What I said was, “Thirsty.”
Thankfully, I had a glass of water in front of me, so I chugged that. I was about to say something even more stupid when the door opened and in bounded two beautiful, perfectly proportioned and petite girls all giggles and leaning on one another.
Upon seeing me, they both stopped laughing. The one with brown hair said, “Oh my God! There’s a girl here!”
She was drunk. That was obvious. The heels in her hand went to the floor and she walked in a non-straight line toward me.
Brady moved quickly and was in between us. He was not happy. “You’re drunk?”
She snorted a laugh and said, “Barely.”
“Candice?” he asked the blonde with pink tips to her hair. She was so perfect it made my head hurt again.
“She won.” Candice, Candy, was also tipsy.
He said with the stern tone of my father talking to my older brother, “Don’t get comfortable because you are going back to your dorm tonight.”
The girl snickered. “You’re roommates, Dad. You can’t tell her or me—”
“This is my apartment. She is not on the lease. I assure you, I can, will, am telling you to go back to your dorm because you are not staying here tonight or any other night until you figure it out.” He pointed and the girl pouted.
His cousin said, “No. I need her. You can’t make her go.”
He had his phone out again after he sat his cousin on the couch. He looked at the other one and said, “Let’s go. Ride is pulling up now.”
She balked. “You can’t be serious?”
